The Enterprise is back on earth and Jean-Luc Picard is the commencement speaker at StarFleet Academy. But the Enterprise's own Wesley Crusher is in a
jackpot at the Academy. His flying squad is the subject of an investigation
involving the death of one of its members.
The dead cadet is the son of a StarFleet officer Ed Lauter much like Wil Wheaton is the son of a man who was killed on active duty. But there is a wall of silence like in our police forces today and in this case it is enforced by the leader of Wheaton's squadron Robert Duncan McNeill.
No doubt McNeill's performance here led to his being cast as Tom Paris in the Star Trek Voyager. Paris is something of a bad boy though nowhere as reckless as his character here.
Ray Walston appears as groundskeeper Boothby sort of a father confessor to the cadets. He has an important scene with Patrick Stewart who values his opinion and his counsel. Imagine his character decades earlier as Lionel Barrymore's in Navy Blue And Gold and you have some idea of Walston's relationship to the cadets.
The key scene is Stewart and Wheaton who reminds him of his duty and how he's letting all on the Enterprise down who invested hopes and dreams in him.
Do you doubt Wesley Crusher does the right thing?
The dead cadet is the son of a StarFleet officer Ed Lauter much like Wil Wheaton is the son of a man who was killed on active duty. But there is a wall of silence like in our police forces today and in this case it is enforced by the leader of Wheaton's squadron Robert Duncan McNeill.
No doubt McNeill's performance here led to his being cast as Tom Paris in the Star Trek Voyager. Paris is something of a bad boy though nowhere as reckless as his character here.
Ray Walston appears as groundskeeper Boothby sort of a father confessor to the cadets. He has an important scene with Patrick Stewart who values his opinion and his counsel. Imagine his character decades earlier as Lionel Barrymore's in Navy Blue And Gold and you have some idea of Walston's relationship to the cadets.
The key scene is Stewart and Wheaton who reminds him of his duty and how he's letting all on the Enterprise down who invested hopes and dreams in him.
Do you doubt Wesley Crusher does the right thing?